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Scrubby foliage hide the entryway. One sloping wooden tunnel descends to a brightly lit reception area. There is a surgery unit, outfitted with gurneys, cardiac monitors and ventilators. Plus cabinets stocked of medical equipment, drugs and organized stacks of spare clothes. In a break area with a laundry appliance and kettle, doctors keep an eye on a display. It shows the flight patterns of enemy spy drones as they zigzag in the sky above.

Medical personnel at an underground hospital look at a monitor showing enemy kamikaze and surveillance UAVs in the area.

This is the nation's covert underground hospital. The facility began operations in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, located in the eastern part of the country not far from the frontline and the city of a key location in the Donetsk region. “We are 6 metres below the ground. It’s the most secure way of delivering care to our wounded soldiers. It also ensures medical personnel safe,” said the clinic’s surgeon, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point treats thirty to forty casualties a each day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from devastating limb trauma requiring amputations, or severe abdominal injuries. Others can walk. Almost all are the victims of Russian FPV aerial devices, which release grenades with deadly accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from first-person view drones. We see few gunshot wounds. It’s an era of drones and a new type of war,” the surgeon explained.

Major the senior surgeon at the subterranean installation for caring for injured soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

During one day last week, three military members limped into the facility. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old one soldier, said an first-person view drone blast had torn a minor wound in his leg. “Conflict is horrific. The guy beside me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he said. “He fell down. Then the Russians dropped a second explosive on him.” He added: “Everything in the settlement is destroyed. There are UAVs everywhere and casualties. Our side's and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi said his unit spent 43 days in a wooded zone close to Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture since last year. The only way to reach their location was on foot. Necessary provisions came by drone: rations and drinking water. Seven days after he was injured, he walked five kilometers (about 3 miles), taking several hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medical staff assessed his physical condition. After treatment, a medical attendant gave him new civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a pair of light-colored jeans.

The soldier, twenty-eight, said a FPV drone caused a minor injury in his leg.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a drone blast had left him with concussion. “I was in a dugout. Suddenly it went dark. I lost sensation anything or hear anything,” he said. “I think I was lucky to survive. A relative has been lost. We face continuous explosions.” A construction worker employed in a neighboring country, Filipchuk said he had returned to Ukraine and volunteered to serve days before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been hit in the upper body. He groaned as doctors placed him on a bed, took off a stained dressing and cleaned his recent injury from fragments. Wrapped in a thermal sheet, he used a mobile phone to ring his sister. “A fragment of artillery hit me. It was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To get better. This may require a few months. Subsequently, to go back to my military group. Our forces has to protect our country,” he said.

Doctors treat the wounded soldier, who was hit in the back by a piece of artillery shell.

Over the past years, Russia has repeatedly attacked medical centers, health facilities, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. Per human rights groups, 261 health workers have been fatally attacked in nearly 2,000 attacks. This subterranean hospital is built from multiple reinforced shelters, with timber beams, soil and sand laid on top reaching the surface. It can withstand direct hits from large-caliber projectiles and even three eight-kilogram explosive devices dropped by aerial means.

A major industrial group, which funded the construction, intends to build 20 units in total. The head of Ukraine’s national security council and former defence minister, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “critically essential for saving the lives of our armed forces and supporting defenders on the frontline.” The organization referred to the initiative as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had undertaken since Russia’s military offensive.

An example of the centre’s surgical rooms.

The surgeon, said some injured personnel had to endure delays many hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated because of the danger of aerial attacks. “We had a pair of severely injured patients who arrived at 3am. I had to carry out a double amputation on a patient. The soldier's tourniquet had been applied for so long there was no other option.” How did he cope with traumatic surgeries? “I’ve been medicine for two decades. You have to concentrate,” he said.

Medical assistants transported the soldier through the tunnel and into an ambulance. The transport was parked beneath a bush. The patient and the two other soldiers were taken to the city of a major city for additional medical care. The subterranean medical team paused for rest. The facility's ginger cat, the mascot, padded toward the doorway to greet the incoming patients. “We are active 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko stated. “The work is continuous.”